Sanitary napkins are used by women principally during their menstrual periods to receive and contain menses and other vaginal discharges to protect their garments from soiling. Sanitary napkins typically have adhesive attachment means to temporarily adhere the device to the crotch region of the user's undergarment, normally her panty.
Pantiliners serve much the same purpose as sanitary napkins; the distinction is primarily in the overall size, including thickness. Pantiliners are generally less bulky and are designed to protect the user's clothing from relatively small quantities of vaginal discharges.
Many women have developed the habit of wearing an absorbent device between their menstrual periods to protect their clothing from any vaginal discharges, including light urinary discharge, and sometimes anal discharge. Because a sanitary napkin is generally too bulky for constant wear, such user's generally utilize pantiliners.
Most pantiliners have a non-breathable backing layer, commonly referred to as a backsheet. The backsheet of typical pantiliners can be a fluid impermeable polymer film, for example. A fluid impermeable layer prevents fluids absorbed into the device from wetting through to the user's garments. However, the fluid impermeable layer also makes the pantiliner hot and uncomfortable, due to trapped moisture in the absorbent core.
Pantiliners are also known to provide a breathable backing layer, such as a breathable polymer film or nonwoven web backing layer. Generally, such backing layers are fluid impermeable, vapor permeable layers that allow the exchange of vapor while preventing the soiling of the user's garments. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,059,114 issued to Richards on Nov. 22, 1977, discloses a disposable garment shield having a moisture barrier ply constructed of a blown microfiber web which is fluid impermeable but vapor permeable. Also, U.S. Pat. No. 4,681,578 issued to Anderson et al. on Jul. 21, 1987 discloses an absorbent article such as a pantiliner provided with at least one ventilation area which allows the passage of vapor to provide cooling and drying effects so that the pantiliner is more comfortable to wear.
While these breathable pantiliners do provide some measure of improvement over the more common impermeable pantiliners, comfort, garment soiling, dryness, and vapor exchange (breathability) remain as key design considerations. Accordingly, absorbent devices providing for the better retention and absorption of liquids while providing for the more efficient passage of vapor have been sought.